Enjoy music and dance extravaganza

THE music discipline at the University of KwaZulu-Natal will host an international African music symposium that will bring together academics, artists and documentary film makers with an interest in Africa and the diaspora.

The International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) African Musics Symposium, which will be from 29 September to 4 October at the university’s Howard College campus, will see delegates exchange dialogue, research and creative outputs about African music and dance. The symposium will also see discussions on academic papers, concerts and workshops where delegates can interact and share knowledge over four days.

The keynote speaker is distinguished Emeritus Professor, JH Kwabena Nketia, a Ghanaian ethnomusicologist and composer and considered Africa’s premier musicologist. He has lived an amazing legacy, spanning decades, and easily the most published and best-known authority in African music and aesthetics in the world.

The symposium has three themes: 'African bows, harps, fiddles, guitars', 'Packaging Heritage' and 'Transnational Diasporic Cultures'.

Delegates can also expect to participate in exciting workshops of music and dance from a number of different ethnic groups from various African countries and learn from research findings of ethnomusicologists and African researchers on a broad variety of subjects.

The symposium will also feature special concerts from artists from Kenya, Ghana and Botswana and will also feature workshops to be presented by artists from Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Following the performances will be the ever-popular African cuisine function, with mouth-watering dishes from throughout the continent – a not-to-be-missed spectacular and appetizing evening of indigenous music, dance, fashion and cuisine.

Go dressed in your African gowns and beads and skins in true Pan African spirit and celebrate with both legends and youth practitioners and researchers.

Tickets for the 10th anniversary concert are on sale for R200 for adults and R150 for students and pensioners. Contact Thulile Zama on 031 260 3385 at the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music on the Howard College campus, or e-mail culturalcalabash@gmail.com.

Visit https://culturalcalabash.ukzn.ac.za/.